Helping with tech questions - TweakTown's Ask the Experts - Page 1

Hi Ryan,

Not a problem. Looking up that prebuilt, there are several configurations available, but only a few with the GeForce 1660 Ti. I'm going to assume you have the i7-9700, 16GB memory model configuration. Upgrading from the GeForce 1660 Ti to the GeForce 2070 SUPER is quite a boost in graphics performance, as you know. The first issue we need to look at is space in the prebuilt chassis and how much air movement we have inside.

If you have enough space to fit the 2070 SUPER, we have the green light and you will have to choose between a blower model card if you have little air movement in the chassis or go full custom if the case can handle the additional heat dissipation of a dual or triple fan card.

Power supply upgrade is a given moving from the 1660 Ti that uses 125W peak to a card like the 2070 SUPER that comes in at 220W. Here you will need to make sure what you buy fits the dimensions given in the chassis. Bronze PSUs are fine, but run slightly hotter due to their inefficiency, so I would recommend you go to something 650W+ Silver or Gold certified.

Hi Kevin,

We can help with this! The current market has plenty of options for your Key E slot. To start, you can look at last gen Wi-Fi 5 solutions like the Intel 9260 2x2 which will give you Bluetooth 5.0 as well. Another option is the Killer 1535 or 1550 if you can take advantage of 160MHz.

If you plan on updating your router in the next year or so, I'd recommend you pay the extra $10 USD and pickup the Intel AX200 or Killer AX1650 if this motherboard will be used for gaming.

As for the antenna, while you will get decent signal within a few feet without, I would say it's worth it if you can find something you like. I'm honestly surprised your motherboard doesn't come with one.

Hi Jeremy,

In my experience, single 120mm AIOs are on par with high-end air-cooling solutions like the D15 and Dark Rock Pro 4. That said, it may be quite loud compared to your current stock configuration to keep the temperatures where you want them at load.

If you have the extra room, I'd recommend the H115i or Kraken X62. Both being dual 140mm solutions, they will be much quieter and offer the lower temps you want at load.

If you don't have the budget or prefer to stick with air cooling, the D15 is the better cooling solution based on our testing.

Hi Devank,

That looks like a pretty solid build. For rendering, I might opt for 32GB of DDR4 and quicker primary storage, something like Samsung 970 EVO or WD SN750.

If you are open to an AMD build, you could stay with the same budget, which appears to be around $1750 USD, and pick up an ASUS Prime X570-P, Ryzen 5 3600, 32GB Vengeance LPX 3600MHz, MP600 500GB for very quick primary storage leaving just the GPU, from which you can go with the RTX 2060 and have about $400 US left for cooling, chassis, and PSU.

That said, you may need to look for more room in the budget with the monitors mentioned above, but my personal preference would be the Dell 2419H.

Hi Farshad,

Thanks for the question. Looking at the Intel Core i9-10980XE Extreme Edition, it is part of the Skylake architecture and uses the LGA2066 platform as you mentioned above, so in short yes you can upgrade your current CPU to the new 10th generation Cascade Lake-X chips.

Comparing to your current 9900X, you will enjoy a significant boost in core count, but lose base frequency. In addition, you will likely miss out on the extra PCIe lanes by not upgrading to a new X Series motherboard, but the new platforms are still PCIe 3.0, so if you are happy with your current setup, then run with it.

Another thing to watch out for is TDP as you may need to upgrade your cooling when you move to the 10980XE with its 165W design.

Hi Tyson,

Sure! Your symptoms are telling me that Windows still thinks or see's the setup media whether it's a partition or USB drive. If you used the Windows Media Tool to make a USB drive for installation, remove it and see if that menu still comes up.

If you did not use USB for installation, Windows may have created a small setup partition for the setup procedure. Check disk management to see if this is the case.

To remedy, I would try disk cleanup to start and allow it to clean all Windows files and old versions of Windows, then reboot and check. If that fails to resolve this, we need to hit msconfig and check the boot tab. If you see multiple versions of Windows listed, you can simply select the one labelled "setup" and click delete.

Hi Heart,

This one took a bit more research and will require trying several things to see what helps. The first thing to do is to use the PowerShell in admin mode and type "powercfg -lastwake". This will show you what is making your computer come out of sleep mode, results will show everything from power button to the actual device ID like a keyboard or mouse.

Another option is to unplug the mouse and keyboard when you put the machine to sleep to see if these devices are getting vibrations, especially the mouse, causing the wake situation.

It's also important to note that some installed security software will wake your machine to check for updates. It's worth a try to enable hibernation and put the computer in deep sleep.

Hi Tam,

I would start by checking your HDMI or Displayport cable to see if that's the issue with the graphics corruption you are seeing. If you are set on upgrading your GPU, the ThinkCentre machine you mentioned uses half-height graphics cards.

Doing some looking online, it does appear you can get some decent GPUs that are half-height with no external power requirement the best being the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI have options there.

A second, slightly less powerful option would be the Radeon RX560 with MSI being the only vendor I have seen with this option.

Hi Sammy,

You are correct - AMD systems have always had issues with bent pins when removing heat sinks, but it really is user error coupled with thermal paste.

The best way I have found to remove heat sink on any AMD platform including AM4, is to remove all mounting hardware and fans and twist the cooler while applying slight pressure towards the socket.

This should help in breaking the adhesive stiction of the thermal paste and in the future I would recommend a paste that's a little thinner like NT-H1 or MX-4 and not so peanut buttery like AS5.

Hi Lee,

No problem!

I'm guessing you are wanting to add this as a secondary main screen paired to the ASUS notebook you mentioned above. If so, it would be beneficial to know what setup the notebook has; defaults for your model appear to be a Core i7-8750H CPU and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB GPU.

Both monitors are 1080p native with 5ms GTG response time and even share much of the same specs all the way down the list. The BenQ does have two HDMI inputs whereas the LG has one HDMI and a VGA.

For gaming, you are going to want to look at refresh, response and resolution. The LG, for me, looks like the better solution simply because it supports FreeSync at 75Hz. You don't necessarily need an AMD GPU to take advantage either, you will just manually select 75Hz in setup.